Only 180 km/hour at Lawrence East Supercharger?

I'd say that's low. That's about 84 mph? What level was your battery at start? How do you know the other cars were'nt charging? You do know that if the car is shut down because the key is not around there is no indication of charging? Just some musings.

hemants said:

I supercharged today at the Tesla dealership on Lawrence East (january 1).

Was getting a maximum of 180 km/hour charging rate. Is that low?

Other cars plugged in but none of them were charging.

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That is quite low. How do you know the other cars weren't charging? The flashing green light goes out after a few minutes, but the car is still charging.

Yes, that is low.

But, there may be reasons for it.

1. Plugged into charger pair, when other charger in same pair is already actively charging (you claim that is not the case).
2. You battery state of charge is nearing maximum, so the supercharger "tapers" to reduce the current so the battery cells can be balanced and not over charged.
3. The battery is cold. The pack heater will need to warm the battery before it can accept higher charge rates.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but these are the obvious ones.

hemants said:

My battery started at 200km and I ended at 300km (from about 50% to 75% capacity)

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Your Tesla Model S is one of the first generation made, and has an "A Pack" battery which will charge at maximum 90kW power even though the Supercharger can provide 135kW. Newer cars have upgraded packs such as "D Pack" (and recently "E" and "F") which allow the full 135kW.

Given that you were already at half charge, the battery charging was already tapering. Plus it is -8C out tonight, so the pack may not have been fully up to temperature.

If you can, drain down to 30km remaining range and try again, and report back to us, it would be interesting for people like me who are interested in buying a used Tesla Model S to know what early cars are capable of charging at...

It's impossible to tell what the actual power was based on a reported "speed". What was the voltage and current? That will tell you the power. Or you can select "energy" on the Units screen and it will tell you the power directly (e.g. "100 kW") rather than displaying a calculated speed.

The "speed" display is averaged over time, and includes the ramp-up time so you will see an underestimate initially. Shame on Tesla for displaying two different things when you are being told that you're just changing the units being displayed.

Most likely you're just looking at the power that the Supercharger provides when your battery is already mostly charged - in this case probably 70-80%. If your battery was not at that state of charge, then... see SmartElectric's post above.

hemants said:

The other cars were all dealership cars and the dealership had been closed since the previous day. No green lights either but I guess that is not conclusive.

The charger stations are labelled 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B. I was on 2A and 2B was empty.

My battery started at 200km and I ended at 300km (from about 50% to 75% capacity)

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Tesla cars? this is BAD. they did this at the factory a couple of years ago when I was there late at night. bad protocol. I bitched to an engineer that was leaving and he was shocked that sales/delivery would do that.

You can tap the handle on the plugged in car to see if it is charging and how fast it is based on the flashing ring. (debatable whether this is 'ok' to do or not)

I charge at this location frequently (2 to 3 times a week) and have experienced some anomalies.

I took the last vacant supercharger two weeks ago and never got above 12 amps (16km/h) after waiting 15 minutes. Not sure what the problem was but if it was due to 7 cars charging, they shouldn't install more stalls than they can power.

I am plugged in now and getting 208km/h (402v / 80amp) with 374km already in the tank.

I charged at the Lawrence supercharger last night. Was on my way back from Ottawa and got caught in the snowstorm in Kingston, made it back with 20 km range remaining! All the 'B' stalls were taken, no indicator lights so not sure which ones were actually charging. I used stall 3A and had max charge rate of 96kW (346V /278A).

Chrisizzle said:

I took the last vacant supercharger two weeks ago and never got above 12 amps (16km/h) after waiting 15 minutes. Not sure what the problem was but if it was due to 7 cars charging, they shouldn't install more stalls than they can power.

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Or maybe they need to upgrade their tie-in to Toronto Hydro.

hemants said:

I was getting a max of 60 amps FWIW

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Yup, that is low.

If you show up with a mostly discharged battery you should see over 300 A. (300A @ say, 350V would be 105 kW). 60A @ 400V is only 24 kW - the power should be above that for almost the entire charge, well past 90% I believe.

52kW, Dec 6 2014

52kW again, Jan 1 2015

Finally 102kW, Jan 3 2015

I had three supercharging sessions at this Grand Hyatt Tokyo Supercharger, not sure the stall number but they have two stalls only and I was the only Tesla using the Supercharger. I also use the same stall for these three sessions.

As you can tell, the first two sessions only went to 52kW and the amperage didn't go up at all. In the first case I gave up and left the Supercharger after 15 minutes. The second case I was shopping and range charge so I was charging like two hours.

The last session was normal, 102kW and going up to 106kW, then gradually taper down. I charged to 90% on that day.

The range is typical - which is the same as U.S. Rated range. Our rated is your ideal... So 390km is 100%, 195km is 50%.

I posted because my experiences looked similar to the OP. Could be '"reduced power" to save demand charges? In Japan it doesn't make sense though, because here in Tokyo demand charge is determined by only the highest peak in one year. If you hit all year high, then that is the rate you're going to pay next year.

hemants said:

Went again today and got max 140km/h but this time the charging bays were almost full.

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Have you spoken to Tesla about this?

I was in today as well. Started at 146km of range and maxed out at 440km/h of charge. Made a number two and was at 300km when I got out.